Lightning Rod
by Plouton
Summary: In the words of an incredibly unwise cartoon character "I've never had a death wish, it's just that I don't believe that I personally even can die." Which I know for a fact, considering that I woke up after being struck by lightning. Twice.


I remember dying.

That's not quite right. I didn't actually remember _dying_. I just remember the sensation of dying.

I remember the searing pain. All of my muscles simultaneously contracted, and my brain felt like it melted – felt like it was going to leak right out of my ears. There was so much pressure in my skull and the sound of static filled my ears.

You know that feeling you get when you get punched really hard? Right in the face? And your head snaps back and you kind of freeze for a second? Ah… Actually you probably don't, do you. Anyways. It hurt like that. Like I got hit by a freight train and then that was it.

The lightning tore through my body, searing my nerves and blistering my skin, too fast for me to even scream.

And then I was dead. Caput.

At least I went out with a bang, literally.

I'm not sure how long I was dead for. ( _Oh god oh god oh god.)_ Time doesn't work the same way in the afterlife. ( _I can't breathe I can't_ breathe _. It's crushing me.)_ I suppose it doesn't really matter though. _(Help me. Anybody! Somebody! HELP ME!)_ Because I was reborn.

Let me begin this story by tell you: infantile amnesia exists for a good fucking reason. Being born is nasty. Really nasty. No one deserves to remember that.

Other then that, my first year of life was pretty dull. My baby brain wasn't actually all that capable, so it took me months to puzzle out my rebirth. Every concrete thought I had would fade away before I could move to the next though, and then I had to start thinking all over again. And on top of that, I was so tired. Always so, so, tired.

So I'm going to condense my first year of life down into a couple of bullet points for you and then we are going to fast-forward to where it gets interesting. Ok?

Fact 1: I died. And then was reincarnated. Which was cool. I could work with that.

Fact 2: I was born in Japan, if the language was any indicator, so thank god my baby brain could learn languages more easily, otherwise I'd be fucked.

Fact 3: I was an orphan. Obviously this was not a win, but considering that I was adopted pretty quickly, I guess it worked out.

Fact 4: My 'mother' was a bad mother as far as I'm concerned. Nakahara Masuyo, was a successful, rich, intelligent politician who thought having a kid would make her more appealing to her party. As a result, she very forcefully shoveled her expectations down my throat. I'm pretty sure her plan was to arrange a political marriage between myself and whichever unfortunate victim she chose, though that never quite happened. Thank fucking god. (But seriously if she handed me one more pastel-pink, lace dress over my preferred shorts and t-shirts, I was going to have to fight someone.)

Fact 5: Learning to walk again was a bitch. And talk. And hold things. It took forever and my legs were chubby and weak, and my tongue never wanted to do what I wanted it to do. Which is why I am going to conveniently skip over this part of my story. Though I did manage to convince everyone that I was some sort of genius.

Turns out, I was so freaking precocious that my assigned babysitter (a kind woman with greying hairs, crinkled laugh lines, and eyes in the back of her head, literally,) thought I was gifted with enhanced intelligence. And while that would have been boss, I was not. I just happened to be a 19-year-old chick shoved into the body of a toddler. It was kind of like a cheat code.

I told her this fact. She smiled genially and played along with my assumed childish imagination. "Is that so, Sachi? Might I inquire as to what your name was?"

My nose scrunched up in concentration. Even though it was easy to recall facts, faces, and events, personal details where foggier. "Louis. But my friends called me Lou."

My babysitter didn't believe me of course. Who would? But she asked the appropriate questions and tolerated my 'hyperactive imagination'. Unfortunate, Mother dearest fired her following the discovery that she was entertaining my juvenile delusions.

The replacement babysitter was significantly stricter. She, too, didn't last particularly long.

And that concludes my rapid fire description of my first year as a reincarnated baby.

On to year two.

* * *

"Hold still please. I just need to draw some blood ok? It won't hurt a bit." The nurse explained in his kindest, most convincing voice.

If I weren't the reincarnation of an abrasive collage kid, it might have convinced me that he was telling the truth. As it were, I was a reincarnation and therefore I know that getting my blood drawn was always the _worst._ So I screwed up my face into the meanest glare I could muster and stared at him until he finished (he was much stronger than me and I couldn't pull my arm from his grasp), hoping to unnerve him. I don't know if I succeeded, but he left fairly quickly with my blood sample, leaving me alone in the room with my new babysitter.

I eyed the woman. Mentally, I dubbed her 'Wings', (I wasn't ashamed to say that I had already forgotten her name, as Masuyo fired my caretakers only slightly faster than I could scare them off), named after the absolutely beautiful pair she sported, sprouting from her shoulder blades and curving in an elegant arch of sapphire feathers over her head.

Which brings me to the most important revelation of me reincarnated life. I was not reborn in my old world. And I know this because normal people did _not_ grow _wings_. Nor did they teleport (like Poof the babysitter before Wings), or read minds (like Masuyo), or have super human intelligence (like that Hikufuyu Tasuku child who sat next to me in the waiting room). No. My Earth didn't have any of these quirky little super powers.

Which brings us to my current visit to the doctor office. Typically, a child manifests their power, or 'Quirk', by the age of 4. So every few months since Masuyo adopted me, my caretaker would drag me down to the doctors' office to run a Quirk Apprehension Test. The QAT was typically only given after parents were certain a Quirk had manifested, but I was a bit of an anomaly. When I was adopted, enhanced intelligence was my assumed Quirk. Though, that assumption died when I stagnated in their tests. You can't really blame me, I'm plenty clever, but I only leaned so much in college. This lead to the question of whether I lost my quirk, or simply happened to be smarter than the average child.

"Excuse me, Miss?" The nurse poked his head back through the door. "Would you mind stepping out of the room for a second?"

"Of course. Sachi-chan, I'll just be a moment." Wings explained soothingly. I rolled my eyes at her as she stepped past me to enter the hallway. She slid the door shut behind her and my eyes slid from the blue wood to a poster about joint pain as my ears strained to over head the conversation happening outside.

The words were too muffled to make out completely, "…unusual biological … parent… ascertain ….. develop … x-rays … denser cellular …. heart … aren't ….. irregular molecular …... We …. manipulator type …blood ….. water?" I couldn't sting the words together to make any sense and I sighed in disappointment.

The door slid open to let Wings and the nurse back in. I jumped in without waiting for either of them to say anything first. "You should just tell me what you think my quirk is, you know. It is _my_ quirk after all," and stared expectantly at the nurse. He stared uncomfortably back.

"Now, now, Sachi-chan, no need to pester the poor man, I'm sure he has other patients to attend to, and we really must be going. You have to make an appearance at your mother's rally after all." Wings picked me up off the exam table. "What do you say to the nice nurse?" Gosh, she was patronizing.

"Do you think I can manipulate water?" I ignored Wings prompt to say thank you and goodbye.

The nurse just smiled at me. "I'm sure you will be the first to know your quirk. Bye-bye Sachi-chan!" And quickly ducked out of the room before I could ask another question.

I sucked in a puff of air and blew a raspberry at his retreating back.

* * *

I sat in the corner of the room by myself, leaned up against a couch on one side of me, a wall on the other, and obscured by a large potted plant. Which I pushed forward to give myself enough space. This was my secret place in the office where Masuyo worked. An unfortunate crevice I found myself in more often than not, especially considering Wings had just been fired and Masuyo had yet to hire a suitable replacement.

So here I was, crouching in a corner with a bottle of water and a borrowed phone (currently charging on the outlet next to me), waiting for my mother to be done with her work. I pressed the home button on the phone, hoping for it to light up load the home screen. Instead the dead battery image flashed.

I rocked back on my heels, sloshing the water bottle and pressed my back against the cool drywall. The water sloshes in the plastic container again, drawing my attention to the swirling bubbles and reminding me of the nurses words from this morning. With a decisive nod to myself, I placed the bottle down and position my hands on both sides of it. My brow scrunched in concentration and I stared at the water, willing it to move.

My finders flexed and twitched on the side of the bottle, and I could feel the energy building. At first the sensation was almost unnoticeable. Nothing more than a slight warmth in my palms. My eyes slid closed as I focused on the sensation.

I concentrated harder, willing the energy in my hands to connect with the water in the bottle. I didn't notice the power socket spark. The energy in my hands continued to build until the slight warmth had burned its way into an almost painful point. My left hand spasmed and the water bottle fell over with a quiet thump against the carpeted floor.

A choked cry forced its way past my clenched jaws and my eyes flew open in panic. The power socket sparked again and my muscles contracted painfully. The static that was previously contained to my hands exploded as I lost control. The sound of white noise filled my ears and I felt myself tip sideways when I seized.

Panic filled me as I recognized the sensations. The blinding light of lightning filled my minds eye, accompanied by the nauseating smell of burning flesh.

My eyes slid closed.

* * *

 **Authors Note:**

Ok. I am a literal peace of trash, because instead of finishing my other stories (which I haven't updated in forever) I wrote the first chapter of a new one. And on top of that I have another story in the works which will probably maybe be posted soon and then I just have to hold myself to a more rigorous update schedule. Start giving myself deadlines or something. Honestly I'm so bad about it. So sorry for that.

Anyways. If you've read my other story Murphy's Law, then you know that I can be quite dark in my writing. This story is not at all anywhere near as dark. If I do have anything triggering in m story and you would like me to make note of it at the beginning of a chapter, just shot me a quick PM and I will get right on that.

Story stuff: In case you couldn't tell, this is an SI-OC story (yay my favorite). Nakahara Sachi is a loudmouthed, little shit who's too clever for her own good and is firmly under the impression that she can not die. Feel free to make my day and ask me questions about her.

I will be posting some art for this story on my tumblr shortly, so you can pop on over to fight-me-plz . tumblr (i'd put in the full link but is a bitch about links) and click on my art tag to find that if you feel like it. Also feel free to come and talk to me over there too!

I feel like I had a bunch more that I wanted to say in this authors note but now that I'm writing it, I seem to have forgotten, so we are just going to leave it at that.

Please leave reviews, comments, thoughts, questions, concerns, and/or other.

Over and Out,  
Plouton


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